Alka Joshi

The Secret Keeper of Jaipur is the eagerly awaited sequel to the New York Times bestseller, The Henna Artist. Twelve years have passed and Malik is now an apprentice at the Royal Palace. Lakshmi, now married to Dr. Jay Kumar, runs the Lady Reading Healing Garden. A tragic theater balcony collapse reveals that despite the modern times, money, power and the favor of the Royal Palace remain the primary forces in the Pink City. Malik and Lakshmi set out to discover the truth and see justice prevail in Alka Joshi’s transportive and captivating second novel.

Alka Joshi’s debut, The Henna Artist, was a New York Times bestseller and a Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick. The Henna Artist gives the reader a vivid, sensory-laden peek into the India of the 1950s as it follows a young woman running away from her abusive husband. She reinvents herself as a henna artist and keeper of the elite class’s secrets. However, all of her accomplishments are threatened with the surprise arrival of her blackmail-inclined husband and the sister she never knew she had.

Joshi was born in India and raised in the U.S. from the age of nine. She has a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from California College of Arts and runs an advertising and marketing consulting firm. She has lived in France and Italy and currently lives in Pacific Grove, California.